Xu Xin (; born June 16, 1949) is a professor at Nanjing University and China's leading Judaic scholar, as well as the founder and director of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish and Israel Studies at Nanjing University in Nanjing, China.
Until 1986, he taught mostly English and American literature with a focus on American Jewish authors. Since 1986, he has focused on the study of Judaism, Jewish culture, and the history of Chinese Jews.
Education and professional life
Xu was born in Jinan (Shandong province) in 1949 and graduated from Nanjing University in 1977 as an English major. He became a faculty member the same year. Until 1986, he taught post-World War II English and American literature with a focus on American Jewish authors. His interest in American Jewish authors began when Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1978.
In 1986, while teaching a course on American Jewish authors, he met a Jew for the first time: Professor James Friend, chair of the English Department at Chicago State University in Chicago, who had come to teach in Nanjing for a semester. Friend invited Xu to be an exchange professor at Chicago State. While there, Xu lived with the Friend family (in Lincolnwood, Illinois) and began to study Judaism seriously. He visited Israel on his way back to China in 1988, when there were no diplomatic relations between Israel and China.
Upon his return to Nanjing, he discovered that he got a larger audience when he lectured about his three weeks in Israel than when he talked about his two-year stay in the United States. Seeing the need to disseminate information about Israel and Jewish culture, Xu engaged scholars to work on an abridged Chinese translation of the Encyclopedia Judaica, which he edited. The publisher wanted a $10,000 subsidy for the work, which was raised by donations in the U.S. The book sold out upon publication and a second edition was printed. When China and Israel opened diplomatic relations in 1992, the Chinese government purchased copies for diplomats assigned to Israel. Chinese Jewish families in Kaifeng as well as the religious studies departments of many universities also received copies.
Xu was tenured as full professor in 1994. His small-scale class on Judaism (which he originally taught in English) has developed into a multi-level curriculum attended by hundreds of students. Xu has also created MA and PhD programs on Jewish history and culture. All the doctoral candidates spend a year studying in Israel and graduates of the program have begun centers for Judaic Studies at other universities throughout China.
Publications
He is editor of the Chinese edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica (Shanghai: The Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1993), Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (with Beverly Friend, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1995), Anti-Semitism: How and Why (Shanghai Shanlian Books, 1996), A History of Western Culture (Peking University Press, 2002), and The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion (KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 2003), A History of Jewish Culture (Peking University Press, 2006) and On Jewish Culture (2013, World Publication Company Guangdong Branch). He has also written numerous articles on Judaic topics.
He was the first Chinese scholar to introduce modern Hebrew literature to Chinese readers and has introduced over 50 Israeli poets and writers to the Chinese public in the 1990s. He is also a translator of many books that were published in English. Works he translated into Chinese include: Ten Green Bottles by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan (Yilin Press, 2014) The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer (China Youth Press, 2011) Selected Reading of Great Jewish Thought (Beijing: Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2006) The Defiant: A True Story, by Shalom Yoran, (East China Normal University Press, 2005) The American Jew, 1585-1990: A History, by Jacob Rader Marcus (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2004) Israel 2000 Years: A History of People and Place, ed. by David Arnon (Shandong Picture Publishing House, 2003) Duden Atlas of Jewish History, by Martin Gilbert (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2000) Ahad Ha'am, Bible, and Bible Tradition, by Alfred Gottschalk (Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House, 1999) Anthology of Modern Hebrew Short Stories (Lijiang Publishing House, 1992) In the Heart of the Seas, by S.Y. Agnon (Contemporary Foreign Literature, No.2, 1990) Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Shanxi Publishing House, 1987) Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell (Hundred Flowers Art and Literature Press, 1985)